Archive for real id

There was a day when simply a gap in a tape, a clearly erased attempt at a cover-up, was enough to impeach a president or force him to resign. Richard Nixon was known as Tricky Dick, no one trusted him with the power the office of Presidency when he was so blatantly ignoring the Constitution, our rights, and the interests of the people.

Now, George W Bush is able to make jokes about lying to the public, about Dick Cheney covering over papers of illegal activity; joked about how he likes a dictatorship ‘as long as I’m the dictator.’ Any ONE of those ‘jokes’ would have landed Nixon in PRISON. Investigative reporters would have been ALL OVER that and the directions it could have taken them.

He just hasn’t cared that he is a ‘lame duck’ President, because he knows he ISN’T ONE. He hasn’t cared if we make fun of his wooden speaking style, his word games, his obtuse ‘ignorance’ at worthy questioning.

Our country and our liberties are at stake, our Constitution is GONE and we are in genuine danger of a military state that can disappear YOU and YOUR CHILDREN, and THIS is what we get from our professional journalists, especially one that calls themselves a ‘sleuth’?

Despite all the billions spent on ‘national security’- all WASTED with this next announcement, all the incompetence and brute force of the private enforcement militias and global ‘terrorism’ investigations and pursuit of terrorists… we get this…

Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff reports that ‘most jurisdictions meet initial REAL ID requirements’ according to its press release of April 1, 2008. The press release states “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has granted extensions to 49 of 50 states, the District of Columbia and all five U.S. territories, putting more than 99 percent of U.S. driver’s licenses and ID cards on the path to secure identification. Congress mandated in the REAL ID Act of 2005 that state-issued identification must be REAL ID compliant to be acceptable for official purposes.”

Of course, what isn’t mentioned in this document is the battle being waged in many states against the privacy violations of REAL ID, the unfunded mandate foisted upon states in this time of depressed revenues and inflationary costs, and the resistance of the public to the surveillance demands that are unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy.

Aside from the fact that the Federal Government isn’t supposed to be dictating to the States such matters as licensing to drive, in order to attempt to force compliance DHS has threatened to keep non REAL ID citizens from boarding airplanes.

This indicates clearly to many of us how far the Federal government has come to an extreme dictatorship. It has ‘taken over’ the function and passage of the privately owned airline industry, the demands of the DHS having turned adequately paid service and safety personnel, the flight attendants, into underpaid and over-stressed front line terrorist combat forces! The demands, expectations and enforcement of the DHS into arenas that are unconstitutional and dictatorial is causing great alarm not only among airline employees and the passengers that are harrassed by high-turnover lackey DHS ‘security personnel,’ but also States who are being forced to pay for MORE unfunded mandates.

“One reason is the price tag, estimated at $14.6 billion. Congress has so far appropriated only $40 million and twice this summer voted against additional funding.

“There’s also concern about how difficult it would be to implement. Critics question how states could verify the legitimacy of many foreign passports. ((Impossible to verify with any certainty!))

Conservative libertarians and liberal privacy advocates balk at the requirement that the cards would eventually have an infrared chip containing such personal information as Social Security numbers – machine readable from several feet away. While critics argue that having a central databank could dramatically increase identity theft, DHS contends the secure nature of the ID would decrease it.”

So, rather than speaking the truth of the situation at the press release, Chertoff mislead the public by making it sound as though the DHS plan was going forward without opposition at all.

In truth, the objections raised by states have already prompted DHS to extend the deadline for implementation from the spring of 2008 to 2013.

If states take their citizens SERIOUSLY, and the Constitution of the United States, it is entirely possible that we can still beat this hideous surveillance of the American citizens.

9/11 would NOT have been prevented by REAL ID. Those men were in the country LEGALLY, they were PERMITTED to have licenses even under current DHS requirements, and any intelligence that had been gathered was simply ignored by our government as irrelevant. That, despite the fact that the military had, that very day, conducted identical ‘test’ drills, of planes flying into the WTC and the Pentagon; Dick Cheney ordered responsive fighter planes to STAND DOWN while these terrifying events went on.

There is FAR TOO MUCH unknown information about 9/11 to give up our rights to privacy and liberty. The government has PROVEN itself unable to act upon terrorist information in such a way as to even provide available protection DURING a known incident-in-progress as 9/11. There is no reason for us to believe that they will make any better or more effective use of intelligence gathered with REAL ID cards.

THIS is the truth: “Eight states have voted in the past year not to participate in the program. Nine others are on the record opposing the proposal. In total, legislation opposing the plan has been introduced in 38 states.”

Furthermore: “”This is the federal government telling a state you must do something, and you must pay for it. Well, thanks for playing; Montana is not in,” Governor Schweitzer told NPR. When asked whether his residents will be able to board planes, he taunted DHS. “This is another bluff by some bureaucrats in D.C.”

We must, through our State governments, continue to fight for an end to RFID monitoring of all types.

“Another important 9/11 Commission recommendation was the need to make sure that driver’s licenses do not become weapons in the hands of terrorists as they were on September 11th. As you know, this past fiscal year 2008, there has been $360 million available in funding, potentially, for states that want to have support for their REAL ID efforts. This fiscal year 2009 we’re requesting $50 million to facilitate State compliance, and there will be another $150 million in grants that will potentially be available to states for this purpose in fiscal year 2009.

I want to emphasize, though, the most important contribution we have made to allow REAL ID to be implemented in a way that is efficient and not overly burdensome for the states, is our cutting of the cost of the program by three quarters through rules, changes, that we recently announced in the last few weeks. This now means that the basic cost for a REAL ID-compliant license is about $8 per license over the life of that license, and that is an amount of money that certainly is well within what we should be prepared to pay protect not only against the possibility of terrorism being facilitated with illegal licenses, but to make it harder for illegal immigrants to get licenses, and also to manage to reduce identity theft, which, of course, is a very real problem across the country.”

Making enemies of Americans, by forcing them to have REAL ID, is the fourth step in turning a weakened democracy into a fascist state. Among the many, very expensive, things that are outlined in this horrendous press release, is the plan and the strawman arguments for forcing this unwanted and expensive tracking device on we, the citizens.

As Ron Paul has plainly told us, the government has too much, and is far too easy with releasing, our personal information. The ‘secret’ social security numbers, that were NEVER to be used for any other purpose, are now in the hands, and easily accessible to anyone that can claim an employer ID number, through another program called e-verify.

He explains, “We’re requesting for fiscal year 2009 $100 million for E-Verify, an increase in $40 million. As you know, this program allows employers to use an automated system to run employment authorization checks against DHS and Social Security Administration databases. Currently, more than 50,000 companies are enrolled, and we expect that number to more than double this year. This is a proven tool that attacks one of the most common ways in which illegal aliens fraudulently obtain work in the workplace, by using phony Social Security numbers or mismatched Social Security numbers.”

Soon, no one will be able to be employed without this RFID technology.

Furthermore, the money being provided to states to cover this UNFUNDED MANDATE is only 10% of the total. In this time of decreasing tax revenues for states, because of the increasing financial difficulties of the citizens, taxpayers, and homeowners, the costs of this corporate welfare program will be foisted off on an already struggling populace.

There are so many false assumptions in this very long winded statement from Mr. Chertoff.

He also said, “Let me talk about some of our progress to date. First, we’re requesting $140 million this fiscal year to support the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.”

One terrorist incident is NOT sufficient reason to require RFID identification corresponding among THREE OR MORE COUNTRIES of Mexico, Canada and the United States, and perhaps ALL OF SOUTH AMERICA. This is a springboard for the North American Union and will be the database that will be shared among all three countries, and readily expanded to include the entire American hemisphere- both north and south.

Since when are we, as American Citizens, required to give such personal and private information to OTHER nations, especially when it is the ‘illegal use’ of such information that seems to be the ‘get around’ for illegal immigrants?

The rapid and unquestion progression of this very dangerous program is accepted by all of our representatives as a matter of course. Only Ron Paul is speaking out against this horrendous violation of our rights, and the danger of lost sovereignty that this promotes. Fascism is on the way, and is NOT being curtailed, let alone stopped, by our elected so-called ‘representatives.’

In Hightstown NJ, the US ARMY parachute Test Platoon of 48 men, led by LT William T. Ryder, took their first jump aloft from two 150 foot parachute towers built by a company that had exhibited them at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

The Department of Veterans Affairs - Veterans Pride initiative encourages all veterans to wear their military decorations this Veterans Day, November 11.'(Click high-resolution image for high resolution image

John Michael has launched a new website that contains "everything under one roof" to use that common cliche'.The Blog - The Gallery - The Stores - The Arlington National Cemetery final honors = it's all here Photography by John Michael ...... Please come visit our new home!

Recently, I spent the day at Arlington National Cemetery and captured the Presidential Salute Battery in action as they rendered honors ...I had another camera with me and decided to turn on it's video mode. . . combined with a few photos taken before and during mission and it appears below.

Most all ceremonies I attend, my emotions are contained. I attended one today that I was lost for words as I mingled among them when the ceremony was concluded. But it was afterwards the tears flowed for a part of a regiment that I've seen over the last decade primarily in their dress blue uniforms, executing the missions ahead - either change of comman […]

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